The Collection of Antiquities | Page 4

to them with superstitious awe, as to the image of the Holy
Virgin that cures the toothache. The house of d'Esgrignon, buried in its
remote border country, was preserved as the charred piles of one of
Caesar's bridges are maintained intact in a river bed. For thirteen
hundred years the daughters of the house had been married without a
dowry or taken the veil; the younger sons of every generation had been
content with their share of their mother's dower and gone forth to be
captains or bishops; some had made a marriage at court; one cadet of
the house became an admiral, a duke, and a peer of France, and died
without issue. Never would the Marquis d'Esgrignon of the elder
branch accept the title of duke.
"I hold my marquisate as His Majesty holds the realm of France, and on
the same conditions," he told the Constable de Luynes, a very paltry
fellow in his eyes at that time.
You may be sure that d'Esgrignons lost their heads on the scaffold
during the troubles. The old blood showed itself proud and high even in
1789. The Marquis of that day would not emigrate; he was answerable
for his March. The reverence in which he was held by the countryside
saved his head; but the hatred of the genuine sans-culottes was strong
enough to compel him to pretend to fly, and for a while he lived in

hiding. Then, in the name of the Sovereign People, the d'Esgrignon
lands were dishonored by the District, and the woods sold by the
Nation in spite of the personal protest made by the Marquis, then
turned forty. Mlle. d'Esgrignon, his half-sister, saved some portions of
the fief, thanks to the young steward of the family, who claimed on her
behalf the partage de presuccession, which is to say, the right of a
relative to a portion of the emigre's lands. To Mlle. d'Esgrignon,
therefore, the Republic made over the castle itself and a few farms.
Chesnel [Choisnel], the faithful steward, was obliged to buy in his own
name the church, the parsonage house, the castle gardens, and other
places to which his patron was attached--the Marquis advancing the
money.
The slow, swift years of the Terror went by, and the Marquis, whose
character had won the respect of the whole country, decided that he and
his sister ought to return to the castle and improve the property which
Maitre Chesnel--for he was now a notary--had contrived to save for
them out of the wreck. Alas! was not the plundered and dismantled
castle all too vast for a lord of the manor shorn of all his ancient rights;
too large for the landowner whose woods had been sold piecemeal,
until he could scarce draw nine thousand francs of income from the
pickings of his old estates?
It was in the month of October 1800 that Chesnel brought the Marquis
back to the old feudal castle, and saw with deep emotion, almost
beyound his control, his patron standing in the midst of the empty
courtyard, gazing round upon the moat, now filled up with rubbish, and
the castle towers razed to the level of the roof. The descendant of the
Franks looked for the missing Gothic turrets and the picturesque
weather vanes which used to rise above them; and his eyes turned to the
sky, as if asking of heaven the reason of this social upheaval. No one
but Chesnel could understand the profound anguish of the great
d'Esgrignon, now known as Citizen Carol. For a long while the
Marquis stood in silence, drinking in the influences of the place, the
ancient home of his forefathers, with the air that he breathed; then he
flung out a most melancholy exclamation.
"Chesnel," he said, "we will come back again some day when the
troubles are over; I could not bring myself to live here until the edict of
pacification has been published; THEY will not allow me to set my

scutcheon on the wall."
He waved his hand toward the castle, mounted his horse, and rode back
beside his sister, who had driven over in the notary's shabby basket-
chaise.
The Hotel d'Esgrignon in the town had been demolished; a couple of
factories now stood on the site of the aristocrat's house. So Maitre
Chesnel spent the Marquis' last bag of louis on the purchase of the
old-fashioned building in the square, with its gables, weather-vane,
turret, and dovecote. Once it had been the courthouse of the bailiwick,
and subsequently the presidial; it had belonged to the d'Esgrignons
from generation to generation; and now, in consideration of five
hundred louis d'or, the present owner made it over with the title given
by the Nation to its rightful lord. And so, half in jest, half in earnest, the